Suspense Fiction. As in Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone, the Ozarks are not a welcoming place for a teenage girl digging up family secrets and dark local history best left buried. Seventeen-year-old Lucy Dane has always been treated as an outsider, in part because of rumors surrounding her mother's disappearance not long after Lucy's birth. The discovery of the body of a long-missing school friend compels Lucy to look into both disappearances, but few are willing to help her. Vividly depicting both small town life and rural poverty, this debut also offers gripping suspense and quick pacing.

Thriller. Isabel Reed is a New York literary agent who's just received an anonymous manuscript that -- if published -- promises to make a lot of money, but will also destroy the career of a very powerful man. This man would do anything to keep the secret that's exposed in the manuscript, and though Isabel is careful, she's not quite careful enough. As copies of the manuscript start to get out, Isabel and quite a few others find themselves in mortal danger. The "suspense is palpable"(Publishers Weekly) but where author Chris Pavone really shines is in the backstories of his characters. And though The Accident stands alone, fans of his 2012 debut (The Expats) will enjoy seeing some familiar faces pop up here.

Psychological Suspense. Five years ago, Harry and Robin's three-year-old son, Dillon, was killed when their Tangier apartment building collapsed in an earthquake. With their relationship understandably affected, they've moved to Dublin to start again. But when Harry believes he's seen Dillon on a crowded street in Dublin, he is consumed with finding him again. Was Dillon kidnapped? Or is Harry hallucinating, debilitated by guilt for having left his son alone? Either way, his obsession takes over his life, once again straining his marriage. This twisty yet reflective tale is "an intriguingly emotional and conventional debut" (Kirkus Reviews) by established authors Paul Perry and Karen Gillece, working together for the first time under the pseudonym Karen Perry.

Thriller. In 1991, a small Croatian town banded together to defend itself from Serbian forces, pooling their money to buy powerful weapons that never arrived. Twenty years later, the survivors of the massacre once again come together, collecting enough money to pay an assassin to kill the arms dealer who betrayed them. This revenge-motivated plot embroils several individuals from different backgrounds, including a London cop tasked with stopping contract killings, a Customs officer, a woman tracking international arms deals, and the arms dealer himself. More character-oriented than action-packed, The Dealer and the Dead offers an unusual perspective on the bloody Bosnian conflict.

Spy Fiction. The assassination of American diplomat Stan Bertolli in Hungary sends his wife, Sophie, on an under-the-radar hunt for answers that brings her first to Cairo, where she seeks answers from former lovers and WikiLeaks alike. It's 2011, and the region is roiling with Arab revolutions, but while some think Stan's death is connected to a rejected CIA plan to get rid of Gadhafi, others think the answers lie in the past, specifically his 1991 honeymoon in Yugoslavia. Shifting allegiances and political deceptions spell danger for everyone caught up in the action.

Psychological Suspense. When Libby Day was seven years old, her mother and sisters were murdered while she hid nearby; after her testimony, her brother was sent to prison. Twenty-five years later, she starts selling off family artifacts to make some desperately needed money -- the buyers, a group of obsessed true-crime fanatics, also push her to look into the murders, which eventually forces her to question her memories. Graphic and violent, Dark Places is "a gritty, riveting thriller with a one-of-a-kind, tart-tongued heroine" (Booklist). The movie version is set to open in September, and will star Charlize Theron as Libby. Author Gillian Flynn also wrote the bestselling Gone Girl, which will be released as a movie the following month.

Psychological Suspense. Seven years ago, 11-year-old friends Alice and Ronnie "rescued" an unattended baby, and something terrible happened. The two girls are now out of juvenile detention and living at home, just a few blocks from where the baby lived. But a toddler has disappeared, and suspicion naturally falls on the newly released teenagers, whose names have been leaked to the press. From the beginning, it's unclear who deserves the greater share of guilt for what happened seven years before, and author Laura Lippman utilizes changing perspectives as she draws deft portraits of the tension and emotion involved in both the old case and the new. Every Secret Thing is in U.S. theaters this month, starring Dakota Fanning as Ronnie.

Crime Thriller. When their downstairs tenant dies, debt-ridden Tom and Anna Reed feel like they've won the lottery -- there's $400,000 stashed in the tenant's kitchen and no reason not to keep the money for themselves. Too bad the cash didn't exactly belong to the dead man, but rather came from a drug deal gone bad -- and there are now several not-so-nice people looking for both the money and the missing drugs. So, do regular people Tom and Anna keep the money, or cut their losses and give it back? Read this "stellar performance" (Publishers Weekly) to find out, or watch the upcoming 2014 movie, starring James Franco and Kate Hudson. Either way, be wary of sudden windfalls.

Thriller. Professional thief Parker (no first name) has been starring in books since 1961, and his toughness, brutality, and deadliness are legendary. He's also been portrayed in several movies, though the recent release of Parker, starring Jason Statham, was the first time the main character in the film used the same name as the books.The eponymous 2013 flick was based on the events of the novel Flashfire, in which Parker has been stiffed by his companions in a robbery. Naturally, he decides to get back at them by figuring out their next target and robbing it first. But first he's got to deal with the assassins he's got on his tail.

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